Author Traces Ancestor’s Swindling Footsteps

Scott C. Johnson was 14 when his father finally revealed, 'Scotty, I'm a spy.' Johnson discusses the impact of his dad's clandestine career in an interview about the new memoir, 'The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son, and the CIA.'

Walter Mosley's 11th Easy Rawlins mystery -- 2007's 'Blonde Faith' -- ended with the Los Angeles P.I. driving his car off a cliff while drunk and in despair over a lost love. Now, in 'Little Green,' the hospitalized Rawlins awakens from a two-month coma, and goes back on the job to trace a teenager who has disappeared on the Sunset Strip.

The gap between our dreams and reality -- and the price we pay when forgetting that our vision of the world is only partial -- has long preoccupied author Claire Messud. It's crucial in 'The Woman Upstairs,' as the love-starved Nora becomes obsessed with all three members of a family visiting from Paris, each of whom fulfills an unmet need in her emotionally austere life.

'The struggles in Afghanistan play a role, but not with the same immediacy of the first two books' -- 'The Kite Runner' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns,' says Hosseini in an interview at his San Jose office. He calls his third novel -- 'And the Mountains Echoed,' which encompasses scenes in France, Greece and California -- 'my least political book.'

The Sacramento region is well-populated with retired and active military personnel, who happen to be well-read fans of military-centric literature and fiction.